LOS ANGELES — The red carpet was crammed, the TV screens stopped working and many of the night’s winners were absent from the event.
But the first U.S. TikTok Awards, held at the Hollywood Palladium on Thursday, still had a lot to celebrate.
Just before creators began walking the red carpet, news broke that ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent company, had signed binding agreements to create a joint venture for the app in the U.S.
A bipartisan law passed last year required ByteDance to sell to an American company by this year or face a ban. President Donald Trump repeatedly delayed the ban, which was supposed to take effect in January. In September, Trump signed an executive order facilitating a TikTok deal that could transfer majority ownership of the app to Americans. But its fate was largely still up in the air, until Thursday.
By showtime, the platform’s tumultuous year already seemed to be a thing of the past. Audience members mingled with the nominees and nibbled on hors d’oeuvres such as caviar on fried chicken and matcha-flavored petit fours. A cannon on stage shot out Labubus to the crowd, and Mikey Angelo, known on TikTok for his annual “recap” raps, opened the show with a rap that highlighted the most viral trends and soundbites of the year.
Brooke Monk, one of the platform’s earliest stars, said she spent months worrying about TikTok’s demise.
“You can find numerous crash outs of me online saying goodbye [to TikTok],” said Monk, who has more than 43 million followers on the platform, where she posts videos on beauty, fashion, lifestyle and comedy.
The new deal is “kind of a stress reliever for me, because I love it [TikTok] so much,” she added.
The event came just weeks before the industry’s traditional awards season kicks off with the Golden Globes in January. While creators have made appearances at Hollywood events and awards shows in past years, online influencers have struggled to achieve mainstream recognition in the entertainment space.
But TikTok — and its slew of popular creators — want that to change. The show, which aired live on TikTok and Tubi, touted the tagline “New Era, New Icons.”
Headlined by Ciara and hosted by La La Anthony, the show featured a star-studded lineup of presenters including media personality and entrepreneur socialite Paris Hilton (who won muse of the year), former “The Real Housewives of New York City” star Bethenny Frankel and Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles.
“Hopefully … [the show] will bring more of the public in,” said Alexis Nikole Nelson, who has more than 4.8 million followers on TikTok. “And show them that, even though I feel like everyone’s said it a million times, TikTok is not just a dancing and lip-synch app.”
“Not that we don’t love the dancers and the lip-synchers too,” Nelson, who shows her audience how to forage wild plants, added.
Hollywood appears to slowly be recognizing digital media’s power. Just this week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that its coveted Oscars ceremony will stream exclusively on YouTube beginning in 2029, instead of ABC, its longtime network home.
And Warner Bros. Discovery said it plans to sell its studio, HBO and HBO Max to streaming giant Netflix, passing up Paramount’s bid valued at more than $108 billion for all of Warner Bros. Discovery.
The creator economy, which is valued at hundreds of billions of dollars by some reports, has also become a powerful economic and media force. A few influencers — like MrBeast and Addison Rae, who have built online followings larger than some Hollywood A-listers’ — have leveraged their viral fame to secure opportunities in traditional film, TV or music.
“At the end of the day, what makes somebody a star is the ability to captivate an audience, entertain, make somebody smile, make somebody cry, make somebody feel something,” James Charles, who first rose to internet fame as a makeup YouTuber in the 2010s, told NBC News on the carpet. “And I think that takes a special type of talent, whether it’s on a traditional movie theater screen or your phone screen.”
TikTok handed out 14 awards that honored both up-and-comers and veterans of the platform.
“Love Island USA” star Jeremiah Brown, who was part of season seven of Peacock’s popular reality dating show, was crowned rising star of the year. Keith Lee, known for his restaurant reviews, received the coveted creator of the year award.
Other notable winners included Bretman Rock for video of the year, Alex Warren for breakthrough artist of the year and Tineke Younger for storyteller of the year.
Though primarily for digital-first celebrities, the awards show also drew a slew of more traditional celebrities, including “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Trixie Mattel, who strutted onstage to screaming cheers as she presented the first award of the night.
“Digital media blew television away a long time ago. And those of us who have been here doing it, we knew what was going to happen,” Mattel told NBC News on the carpet before the show. “TV wishes.”
The night ended with TikTok announcing a contribution of $50,000 to the nonprofit Feeding America, in honor of Lee’s impact, just before blue confetti rained down to the tune of the most viral sound of this summer: a song for a Jet2 holiday ad.
